The Staff of Magnus (Skyrim)
Walkthrough The College of Winterhold Upon arriving back from Mzulft, you find Ancano in the room with the Eye of Magnus. He is keeping everyone out with a shield and doing something with the Eye. Upon trying to stop him, Savos Aren is killed, and you are tasked to find the Staff of Magnus from the Labyrinthian to put an end to whatever Ancano is doing. Labyrinthian It is strongly recommended to first get some shock resistant armor before arriving as the boss uses very powerful shock magic and can summon a Storm Atronach. Note in Savos Aren's room there is a pair of 40% shock resistant boots next to his bed. Upon arriving at the Labyrinthian, the staircase to the right leads to a large stone door. Opening this door requires the Torq of Labyrinthian obtained from Savos Aren's Death. Here you see what appears to be a remnant memory of the place. You can see the mages of the college all discussing entering the Labyrinthian. Note, on the right side of the room inside the Labryrinthian, there is a randomly generated spell tome. Known Spell Tomes: Detect Life, Ironflesh, Telekinesis, Waterbreathing. After watching them talk, go into the next room, where you will see a lever and iron bars. On the other side are several skeletons and a Skeletal Dragon (note, this dragon does not have a soul to absorb). *If you are having trouble with this section, pull the lever, but do not go through to doorway. The fence will eventually close, but you can cast a few spells before it does. This makes for an extremely easy fight where you will likely take no damage. *For Conjurers, you can get close to the gate and cast your preferred conjuration spell on the other side freely. This is much easier and you will take no damage and when your conjured follower dies/expires, you can just re-cast another. Even at point blank range, the Skeletal Dragon's Breath does nothing. (However, if there are other attacking creatures, your follower will not kill it when it yields, so you must perform the final blow or it will regain full health.) *For Sneak/Archers, you can sneak to the rocks on the left side of the room and hide between stairs and a rock. If you have high skill/perks, you can 1 hit skeletons one by one and takes about 5 hits for the dragon without being detected. After this room is another vision, describing their encounter with the dragon the first time around. Standing in the hall is an Etched Tablet which reads: "Hail All - Brave City Bromjunaar Forever These Walls Shall Stand May Enemies See Her Majesty May all Quake to Behold Her" The next room holds a frozen door and two guardians. A voice speaks to you before entering the room, which drains you of all your magicka, but does not hurt you. To pass, you must melt the door with Flames. Despite all races starting with this spell, there is a book to teach you it in the same room. Down the path a little ways is a room guarded by two Draugr Wights or a troll depending on your level. A Door sealed with a Lightning Rune lies behind them. This rune does approximately 100 points of lightning damage, and wards do not protect against any of it. However, an enemy can open the door from the other side and not set off the rune. In this room is a spell book for Equilibrium which turns 25 points of life into magicka per second. At the bottom lies a river. Follow it through several doors, defeating Draugr as you go. (along the way you should find 4 malachite ores in a pool/side area of one of the halls). A large metal bar gate stands on the other side of a room, pull the lever to continue. On the other side, three wisps float around a fire and stones. They are non-hostile until you run past them. After defeating the Wispmother, continue to a door which is on fire. Use frost magic on the door to put it out. Some more ways down you will find a spell of Steadfast Ward. The next hallway contains runes and fireball traps. The fireball traps can be deactivated with a Fireball spell (to remove the soul gems powering them), or one can simply take the gem before it fires. Destruction magic can also be used to set off the runes. A strong mage character can use a ward. Farther in, the Power Word Slow Time can be found after defeating a Draugr Deathlord. The Deathlord is dormant until you wake him, so a sneak attack can be very effective in ending the fight quickly. At the end stands Morokei, the dragon priest, wielding The Staff of Magnus. To defeat him, you must first kill the enthralled Mages holding him in his bubble. Which, as you'll find out, are two colleagues of Savos Aren sacrificed to hold Morokei here. Then the fight against Morokei begins. Fighting Morokei He uses wards, shouts, and shock spells, but also has a spell which may convert summons or zombies against you, although he doesn't use it if player character is on lower levels or summoned creatures stay away from him or the creature was summoned using a scroll. If he has a line of sight on you he will not move, so as long as he can not hit you because of cover you can easily shoot him with arrows. When entering the room, with a high enough sneak skill it is entirely possible to kill the two wizard thralls with one hit stealth attacks or bow, allowing you to remain hidden. If you do so, Morokei will not be aware of you. If you time it right, it is possible to not only kill him in 1, 2, or 3 hits (depending on weapon and skill), but it is also easy to go through the entire section without getting hit once. (Confirmed) Stealth attacks can easily be performed from the staircase near the entrance to the room. Also, if you do not have any arrows you can go to the area on top and use the Ice Spike spell to kill him. They do a decent amount of damage each time if you use it on both hands at the same time. It is advised to save before attempting, as with all boss fights. If you are a Breton, and/or have the Atronach perk from Alteration, this fight is much easier; Morokei relies entirely on spellcasting, and the magicka gained from his attacks is more than enough to keep your magicka bar full for self healing, as well as any follower you may be using. Upon leaving, Estormo, a Thalmor mage, attempts to kill you to retrieve the Staff of Magnus from you for Ancano. Notes *It is possible for some if not all of the ghost memories to fail to trigger. *Sometimes upon killing Morokei you will receive 2 Staves Of Magnus. *Rarely, Morokei will simply stand there and do nothing, allowing you to kill him easily. (PS3 and Xbox 360 Confirmed) *If you kill the upper mage-ghost last, use the pillars he was standing under for cover from Morokei's spells. Once he sees you, he will stop moving and cast spells which are easily blocked by the cover provided by the smallish pillar. Fire an arrow, step into the shadow of the pillar, after he casts his spell, step back out and shoot him again. Only needed one healing pot for this encounter. *Tried the above tactic with a pure mage. Very easy to do, just takes some patience depending on your magicka regen. Hiding behind the side pillars on the top platform keeps Morokei stationary and lets you recover health and magicka. Simply step out and quickly cast a powerful spell and step back in. If timed perfectly, one can kill Morokei without taking a single point of damage. *Killing the dragon priest isn't hard per se; if you have conjuring shouts, spells, staffs or other means of summoning it should be rather easy. Bugs *When entering the Labyrinthian Thoroughfare, the game will crash upon hearing the ominous voice talk to you, after walking past the Novice-locked gate. No known fix. *The staff may not work on the Eye of Magnus to lower Ancano's shield. No known fix. *May not be able to enter the Labyrinthian at all. Despite having the Torc of Labyrinthian. No known fix. (Sometimes reloading a previous save before entering the college works) *Cutscenes including Savos, may not include other characters: "savos: we should continue" (another character's line is missing) "savos: agreed we'll all stick together". *The ominous voice will sometimes not occur, the visuals will occur, the voice won't. No known fix. *Sometimes the scenes involving Savos and his companions will cease working all together for the rest of the dungeon. *When crouching at the entrance of with Morokei, there may be a bug where he does not see you if you are hidden and then runs up to you. *When you approach the college after defeating Morokei, the mages may be on the bridge, battling another Anomaly, which may fall down the hill, where it won't move and their attacks can't reach it. The quest tells you to speak to one of the mages, however, he cannot be spoken to while in combat. This can be easily fixed by defeating the anomaly yourself. *It is possible that you receive two Staff of Magnus when you loot Morokei though this is probably extremely rare *It is also possible that you won't even be able to loot the Staff of Magnus at all. Sometimes only the Morokei mask is on Morokei but no Staff of Magnus. *After exiting the room with The Eye Of Magnus a dragon may appear, and while fighting, kill Savos (knocking him off grid through the floor). *It is entirely possible to skip the battle between Estormo, a Thalmor mage. The game continues as normal and you just saved some time. Category:Skyrim: Quests Category:Skyrim: College of Winterhold quests Category:Quests